


Dead of Winter

by elimaria



Series: The Last of Us [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elimaria/pseuds/elimaria
Summary: Following the events/gap of what happened after Joel was impaled.





	Dead of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I'm back with another tlou mini fic. Writing this hurt. I'm probably going to make this a multi chapter mini fic. Enjoy!

Joel was in bad shape. Really bad shape.   
His lips were tinged blue and he was running a high fever from what she could tell. It was awful to see him like this. Joel had been unconscious for the past few weeks. Almost a month now. Traveling with him was hard, she persevered though. 

Ellie knew that he was a fighter. He would fight through this and come out on the other side healed; but darker thoughts still ran through Ellie’s mind. Aside from having hope, she had to have at least some preparation to prepare herself for the worst case scenario. Joel ending up reunited with his daughter in the afterlife. Ellie didn’t really believe in an afterlife, but she hoped that if things did end up going awry that he would be with his daughter once again. Joel was very selective about what he shared with Ellie. Though in fleeting moments when he did share some memories of before, Ellie would cherish them. Remember them and try to imagine what it would be like if the apocalypse never happened. A selfish part of her was glad that the apocalypse did happen because if it hadn’t, she would never have met Joel. 

Joel turned out to be probably the best thing that had ever happened to her. She never imagined that his cold hearted demeanor would melt away. Leaving vulnerability that she also saw within herself. Ellie had the tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve. 

As time marched on Ellie’s hope started to dwindle little by little. Joel wasn’t improving and they had run out of medicine two days earlier. Food was getting more scarce as winter shrouded the atmosphere. Hunting was getting more challenging. Most of the animals had long gone into hibernation. The upside of this was that she wouldn’t run into any grizzly bears throughout their journey through winter. Infected also were pretty scarce now. They didn’t seem to like the snowy tundra. 

Another month past and it was the dead of winter now. She made it to Colorado with a few minor bumps in the road. As the journey tread on, Ellie met David. He was crazy to the extent of making himself believe he was genuine. David’s warm smile had an undertone she couldn’t place. Something dangerous. Something wrong. The only genuine act he had done was trading her buck for some penicillin for Joel from their camp. The statement he said to her still gave her a cold feeling down her spine. 

“They said that the others had been, ah, slaughtered by a crazy man. And get this, he’s a crazy man traveling with a little girl.” 

Ellie knew right away that something was immensely wrong. Mental alarm bells rang after she realized this would definitely not end well. So she left. She knew that she had to leave as soon as she could. As she rode back to the house they were squatting in she mentally prayed for Joel’s survival. 

She made it to the house without anyone following her. Ellie had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long until they found out where she and Joel were at. The penicillin felt like a thousand pounds in her jacket pocket. The one last hope she had for Joel’s survival. Ellie made it to the house. She prayed a mental prayer as she strode down the steps to the basement. The basement was cold and unforgiving like the outside. Ellie made it to the base of the stairs and looked at Joel’s unconscious form. 

“Joel?” Ellie could feel panic rise up inside of her. 

Joel’s eyes were stuck open and his skin was a ghostly white. Joel was dead. Gone forever. Ellie didn’t even get to say good-bye to him. She couldn’t feel anything. All she could feel was a vast nothing. Kneeling down she brushed her hand over his eyes closing them. She took the blanket he was under and covered his body. Ellie didn’t know what to do now and she just wanted to vanish in thin air. Her will to survive was snuffed out like a candle. 

Ellie wanted to give up so bad. She wanted to be wherever Joel was in his eternal slumber but she knew that she had to save humanity. She was their last chance for things going back to what the past was like. 

So she did what she did with Riley. She traveled onward to save humanity.

**Author's Note:**

> Did somebody cut some onions in here?


End file.
